EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has set Jonathan W. Stokes to adapt Six Years, the Harlan Coben novel that was bought by the studio early this year as a potential star vehicle for Hugh Jackman. Mark Gordon is producing. The logline: a man watches his life love marry another man. The groom dies six years later and the guy can’t help but try to glimpse the widow at the funeral. She’s not the same woman. The book was published last March and became another bestseller for Coben, whose Tell No One was turned into the Guillaume Canet French film, with remake rights at Warner Bros where Argo scribe Chris Terrio is writing it.

Stokes wrote three scripts that made the Black List. They are Blood Mountain, which is being financed independently by Derby Street Films and Movie Package Co. with Lawrence Bender producing and Sergei Bodrov attached to direct, and Stokes executive producing; Murders & Acquisitions, which is set up at Warner Bros. with Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg producing; and Border Country. He recently scored a three-book deal, up starting with the debut novel Addison Cooke And The Treasure Of The Incas. for Penguin imprint Philomel Books. Stokes, who also scripted El Gringo, is repped by UTA, Management SGC and attorney Gregg Gellman.